Thursday, January 21, 2010

Alfalfa

I’ve kind of gotten off track with my monthly nutrition blurb, but I’m getting back on the wagon. As you can tell from previous posts, my dogs get other additives to their meals to further keep them healthy, strong, and hopefully live forever.;) I try to continue reading information about various different supplements that I can add into their diet to keep them on this track and hopefully prevent the eventual breaking down of the body as long as possible.

One of the supplements that I started adding to their diet was alfalfa powder. I actually purchase it in the capsule form, but then I break open the capsules and sprinkle it over their food. Works like a charm! Initially they weren’t totally sure, but now they totally ignore it. I gradually worked them up to an adult human sized dose of three tablets per day by increasing the number of tablets by one a month. They get one tablet in the morning and two in the evening. I prefer to kind of break it up like that. It’s far too easy for me to just give everything in the morning, but better for them if I spread things out a bit so that they get the full benefit all day long.

The primary benefit of adding alfalfa to their diet is that it helps in the prevention of arthritis and helps alleviate complications due to arthritis once they have it. Since my dogs are quite active and I want them to continue on this path, as the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

In addition to alfalfa being an arthritis preventative and symptom alleviator, it’s chock full of beneficial vitamins and minerals! It contains vitamins A, B1, B12, C, D, E, and K. With regards to minerals, it contains calcium, copper, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, and zinc. It’s also a good antioxidant source as well as an anti-inflammatory.

Once again, I forgot to post my pedometer step count, so here goes before it slips my mind. On Tue. I hit 20,268 steps and yesterday I hit 19,271 steps. I'm plugging right along!

Today was another nothing day at the dog show. I did get to show Cabo and did really well! His mom Kim was there and video taped him in the ring, which is immensely helpful to me for tomorrow. There's a few things that I want to do differently because I didn't really like how I had his rear stacked. I'll play with him some more tomorrow before ring time and work on that a bit.

Bess got second in her class today, so nothing there. A group of us went out for brunch afterwards to kind of unwind and finish relaxing. I think we're all still a little tired after yesterday. We went out for dinner last night and I was needing caffeine to keep me alert! Once I got home today and took Heffner for a walk, I totally crashed and took a three hour nap. It felt sooooo good! Bess was pretty content to nap on the bedroom floor while I slept, but Heffner has been napping all day and was not entirely understanding of my need for sleep. At one point I wasn't sure if he was trying to wake me up or suffocate me. He came over and just draped his lips over my face! It would have been a lot funnier if I wasn't so groggy at the time.;)

And with that, I'm off to grind some toe nails and go to bed! Tomorrow danes don't show until 1:20pm, but I'm getting there much earlier to ensure a parking spot at the expo center and to watch a lot of the other stuff going on.

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About Me

My life with big dogs is focused on Miley, my fawn girl born in March of 2014, and Dominic, my black boy born in November of 2015. Our down time is spent running and hiking around beautiful Oregon. I'm also a fan of training my dogs to do random tricks and behaviors as well as working with them on a variety of overall strengthening exercises that involve a wide variety of stability balls and other pieces of equipment. Many of these activities I have videoed and you can see throughout the blog. I have previously competed in agility, rally, obedience, and skijoring with Heffner and Bess. Miley is just getting started in her conformation career and has started training for various performance sports. We're looking forward to a fun and active future! I hope you enjoy the blog and all of our adventures!